Kiev media company takes key management system

Security for doors in new office building for a media company in the Ukrainian city of Kiev is provided for with the use of Keywatcher key control system

The new headquarters of 1+1 Media Group, a Ukrainian media holding company, has recently opened in Kiev. Before the move, various departments were spread across the city, causing inefficiencies in both workflow and organisational structure. Now, all activities relating to the company’s broadcast, social media and content production groups are conducted at the new headquarters, making it easier for staff, temporary employees and visitors to go about business.

Bringing together more than 1,000 employees in an eight-story building necessitated rigorous planning with regard to logistics and physical security. Access to the building had to be controlled, with different levels of access assigned to various employees. For economic and security reasons, management concluded that door locks with keys would be the best solution for managing access. However, manual management of the keys quickly became a problem; keys were often misplaced, lost or taken without authorisation.

According to Volodymir Tarasyk, Chief Security Officer for 1+1 Media Group, numerous procedures for controlling the keys were tried without success. He says, “There were simply too many people who needed access to keys for a manual system to be effective. We needed somehow to minimize the human factor.”

They found a solution with the Morse Watchmans KeyWatcher Touch key control and management system. With the automated system, all keys are secured in a tamper-proof cabinet when not in use and, when needed, can only be accessed by authorized personnel using their access control proximity ID badge to open the cabinet and remove or return a key. Users can only take a key they have been pre-authorized to access and all others keys remain securely locked in the cabinet.

All activity is automatically recorded so Mr Tarasyk’s department has an accurate record of who accessed keys and when. The system’s automatic email notification sends an alert when a key has not been returned as scheduled; there is also a daily PDF usage report. The managing software package runs all programming, remote functions and reports while the server performs all synchronizations of transactions as well as maintaining the SQL database.

“The Morse Watchmans KeyWatcher Touch system is integrated with our existing access control system and this has greatly enhanced the level of security in our building,” says Mr Tarasyk. “Manual control procedures have been eliminated and we know who has used or is using each and every key.”

Even though the new offices of 1+1 Media Group are equipped with state-of-the-art media technology, it was a calculated risk on Mr. Tarasyk’s part to approve deployment of the system. He says, “Ours was the first ever installation of KeyWatcher Touch in Ukraine but I was confident in the quality of the product and with the after-sales support that was promised from SPV Company, the authorized representatives of Morse Watchmans in Ukraine.”

He goes on to say, “As it turned out, the American headquarters provided additional back-up support and we never had a serious problem. They were even able to help us when we wanted to add proximity tags to the system’s SmartKey® mechanism to prevent keys from being removed from the building.”

In addition to the economic savings realized by using mechanical locks and keys on doors throughout the building, 1+1 Media Group was also able to realise a savings in security personnel. Mr Tarasyk states that by using the automated KeyWatcher Touch system they were able to reduce the number of security posts by two, further enhancing ROI (Return on Investment).

The system installed at 1+1 Media Group consists of two 9-module cabinets, each holding up to 144 keys and configured with proximity card readers. Operating language is in Ukrainian.